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THE NEW YORKER, SEPTEMBER 1, 2014
Youth Culture
At eighteen, Tavi Gevinson starts a new career.
. It was dark, rainy. A late-spring night in Chicago. Rebecca Rugg,
a brilliant dramaturge, and one of the best all-around theatre workers out there, said, "Now,
we both know I'm predisposed to the ladies, so I don't want my judgment clouded by that,
but that girl was extraordinary, right?" Rebecca was referring to the eighteen-year-old Tavi
Gevinson, who was starring, along with Michael Cera and Kieran Culkin, in the Steppenwolf
Theatre production of Kenneth Lonergan's 1996 play, "This Is Our Youth," directed by
Anna D. Shapiro. (The Chicago cast has been transplanted to the Cort Theatre on Broadway,
where the show, now in previews, will run through early January.) Hyped on our shared
fandom, I said, "Wouldn't Tavi be good playing a just-starting-out Deborah Harry, during the
Blondie years?" Rebecca said, "Not bad! The whole style-and-star thing. Keep going!"
With this show, Gevinson is making her New York stage début, following what seems
like an already full career: founder, at age eleven, of the smart Style Rookie fashion blog,
and, later, of Rookie magazine; independent-minded role model to any number of girls,
young and old, interested in building their own empire. In Lonergan's two-act piece, she
plays Jessica Goldman, an intelligent young woman in a world of somewhat lost teen-age
souls; since she's the only girl in this particular world, Jessica's also the object of standard
sexual speculation. Still she, like Tavi, wears boy fantasy as lightly as she can; she only
wants to connect. Whether standing stock still or dancing awkwardly, jubilantly, with
the beautifully cast Cera---the trio of actors play o one another brilliantly---Gevinson
claimed not just our attention but also our interest. From all available evidence, Gevinson,
who has hitherto had small film roles, is a star being shaped by her own will to be seen and
heard---but now as someone other than herself.
---Hilton Als
Kenneth Lonergan's play "This Is Our Youth," in previews at the Cort, follows a set of disaffected teens.
Openings and Previews
It's Only a Play
Matthew Broderick, Stockard Channing, Nathan
Lane, Megan Mullally, and F. Murray Abraham
star in an update o Terrence McNally's 1986
comedy, in which a playwright encounters colorful
characters as he waits to see i his play, opening
in New York, will be well received. Jack O'Brien
directs. Previews begin Aug. 28. (Schoenfeld, 236
W. 45th St. 212-239-6200.)
This Is Our Youth
Kenneth Lonergan's play from 1996, in which
privileged teen-agers get lost in a world o drugs
and money, makes its Broadway début. Michael
Cera, Tavi Gevinson, and Kieran Culkin star;
Anna D. Shapiro directs. In previews. (Cort, 138
W. 48th St. 212-239-6200.)
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Now Playing
Poor Behavior
The ingredients are familiar---two upper-middle-
class couples, the whisper o in idelity---but
the playwright Theresa Rebeck ("Seminar")
mixes them into a combustible cocktail in her
high-strung new comedy, skillfully directed by
Evan Cabnet for Primary Stages. We open on
a tastefully rustic country house outside New
York, where Ian (Brian Avers) and Ella (Katie
Kreisler) are mid-quarrel. They're debating
goodness---does it exist?---as their respective
spouses (Heidi Armbruster and Je Biehl) idly
watch. There's chemistry between them, which
Ian, an Irish amoralist with a waggish streak,
nudges toward adultery. Rebeck's dialogue is
taut and unsparing, especially when it comes to
bourgeois illusions o happiness. But the play
belongs to Avers, who plays Ian with sneering,
ra ish abandon. Is he a creator or a destroyer
o worlds? (The Duke on 42nd Street, 229
W. 42nd St. 646-223-3010.)
Revolution in the Elbow of Ragnar
Agnarsson Furniture Painter
A political allegory writ very, very small, this
musical by the Icelandic brothers Ivar Pall
Jonsson and Gunnlaugur Jonsson restages the
global inancial crisis deep in the arm o one
sweaty schlub. A thriving community lives
in the crook o this man's arm, subsisting on
lobsters ished from the lymphatic system.
But, when a young man invents a prosper-
ity machine, Elbowville faces collapse. The
semisweet rock score is likable enough, but
the satire is di use, and the lyrics are inane.
Surely even the denizens o a joint can improve
on the irst song's refrain: "This is the game
we are playing / You better hear what I'm say-
ing: / Prosperity!" Still, the mood is insouciant,
and the cast is committed, particularly Cady
Hu man, as a villainous mayor. "I you want
lemonade, you have to kill some lemons," she
says with sinister glee. (Minetta Lane Theatre,
18 Minetta Lane. 800-745-3000.)
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TRE
ILLUSTRATION BY TOMER HANUKA